Open Culture:

How does it compare to the blockbuster film? From its first salvo of Wakandan warrior prowess in a cold open set in the 5th century A.D., to its seventies-African-funk-inspired theme song, to a present-day scene in the White House, with a blustery racist army general (played by Stan Lee) who sounds like a member of the current administration, the first episode, above, suggests it will live up to Hudlin’s casting of the character as “an unapologetic African man,” as Todd Steven Burroughs writes at The Root, “openly opposed to white, Western supremacy.”

I haven’t seen the movie yet (our backwoods little local theater hasn’t started showing it yet) so it’s great to be able to watch this animated series.

CBC:

The world’s last male northern white rhino has died, the Kenyan conservancy taking care of it said, leaving only two females of its subspecies alive in the world, although scientists still hope to save it from extinction through in vitro fertilization.

Ol Pejeta Conservancy said it had made the decision with wildlife officials to put down the 45-year-old rhino named Sudan on Monday because of a rapid deterioration in his condition.

Reading this story this morning made me incredibly sad. These are magnificent animals and we are hunting them to extinction. Check out the trailer for an upcoming documentary about Sudan – The Last Male Standing.

Lory Gil, iMore:

Siri’s voice pitch and natural language has improved significantly over the years. But, just like humans, she can sometimes mispronounce a name. You can teach her how to pronounce names correctly. Here’s how.

If you’ve never gone through this exercise, this is well worth your time, a tip updated to the latest and greatest version of iOS.

Charles Arthur, The Overspill:

I wrote a while back about the problems I had with my 2012 retina MacBook Pro, and its strange shutdowns – which I suspected, but couldn’t absolutely prove, were due to the graphics card problem that these models have been known to suffer from: when the discrete graphics card was activated, there was a chance it would go completely off the rails.

Finally it shut down and didn’t seem to want to start.

And:

The only way to absolutely prove that the problem with the computer was the graphics card, of course, was to take it to a Genius Bar. After eventually getting an appointment (the Mac Geniuses are rare, compared to the iPhone/iPad Geniuses), I turned up with the rMBP which I’d left for dead.

If you’ve got a Mac, especially if you are running High Sierra, take a few minutes to read this story.

My hope is that this is specific to Charles’ Apple Store and not a symptom of a much wider problem. And I do take heart in the fact that the store manager wanted feedback, wanted to find the problem with their systems.

But I do think this solution should have been driven from the top, at corporate. APFS is not news.

From the very end:

But anyhow, if your Mac does break down, and you’re on High Sierra, make sure to tell them if you’re on APFS when they come to the diagnostics. And if they tell you that you need to wipe your drive and start again, just make sure to ask them: “are you certain it’s that, or could it be your network drive can’t read the APFS file system on my machine?” It can’t hurt to ask.

Indeed.

Tim Hardwick, MacRumors:

Bluetooth is what your Mac uses to connect to wireless devices like keyboards, mice, trackpads, speakers, and other peripherals. Generally, it’s a reliable technology. At some point however, the chances are you’ll run into difficulty establishing a Bluetooth connection with one or more of your devices.

Most problems can be fixed by unpairing and repairing the Bluetooth device, changing its batteries, rebooting your Mac, or performing an SMC reset. But if none of these methods work, you can always try resetting your Mac’s Bluetooth module. Here’s how to do it in macOS using the hidden Bluetooth Debug menu.

Great tip, well documented.

Vlad Savov, The Verge:

As The Verge’s resident headphones obsessive, I’m not supposed to like the AirPods. My initial reaction upon first seeing them many months ago was to pour scorn on Apple’s designers for crafting a pair of expensive and easy-to-lose cigarette butts. The AirPods were the resurrection of the awful Bluetooth headsets of years past, I thought. But this year, I finally got around to testing a pair of the AirPods for myself, and I finally understand why everyone who owns them loves them.

And:

My wireless-doom scenario is walking into my kitchen, which is so full of metal things that it’s like a Faraday cage, while leaving my music source device in the bedroom: every non-Apple pair of wireless headphones I test becomes unusable in that situation. With the AirPods (and the Beats Solo and Studio 3, which have the same W1 wireless chip) connected to my MacBook Pro, I maintained a pretty decent connection with only minor dropouts in the kitchen.

And:

The design of the AirPods case is a total masterpiece. It’s tiny but holds multiple extra charges for the earphones, and the rounded sides make them irresistible fidget toys. The tension of the case lid is perfect, delivering a satisfying snap when it opens and closes.

Interesting read. Late to the game, but a solid take on both the pros and cons.

Daisuke Wakabayashi, New York Times:

> Arizona officials saw opportunity when Uber and other companies began testing driverless cars a few years ago. Promising to keep oversight light, they invited the companies to test their robotic vehicles on the state’s roads. > > Then on Sunday night, an autonomous car operated by Uber — and with an emergency backup driver behind the wheel — struck and killed a woman on a street in Tempe, Ariz. It was believed to be the first pedestrian death associated with self-driving technology. The company quickly suspended testing in Tempe as well as in Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto.

Ugh.

> A preliminary investigation showed that the vehicle was moving around 40 miles per hour when it struck Ms. Herzberg, who was walking with her bicycle on the street. He said it did not appear as though the car had slowed down before impact and that the Uber safety driver had shown no signs of impairment. The weather was clear and dry.

How was this vehicle allowed on the road? Something as big as a person with a bicycle, and slow (the woman was walking her bike) and the autonomous camera system did not see it? Tragic. And more so, because it never should have been allowed to happen.

UPDATE: Hat tip to Loop regular Drew Leavitt for this San Francisco Chronicle article, titled Exclusive: Tempe police chief says early probe shows no fault by Uber. From the article:

> Pushing a bicycle laden with plastic shopping bags, a woman abruptly walked from a center median into a lane of traffic and was struck by a self-driving Uber operating in autonomous mode. > > “The driver said it was like a flash, the person walked out in front of them,” said Sylvia Moir, police chief in Tempe, Ariz., the location for the first pedestrian fatality involving a self-driving car. “His first alert to the collision was the sound of the collision.”

Sounds like no driver could have avoided this accident. But:

> Traveling at 38 mph in a 35 mph zone on Sunday night, the Uber self-driving car made no attempt to brake, according to the Police Department’s preliminary investigation.

The car was exceeding the speed limit (barely, true, but the autonomous programming allows this?) and it made no attempt to brake. Which tells me that the system did not detect the pedestrian. Seems to me an autonomous driving system should be able to react in milliseconds. Was this a blind spot in the system?

All this said, I do get that no system is perfect. And that an autonomous system has the chance to be much, much better than the human driver it replaces. But when something like car accidents happen, it makes me feel like a flaw has been exposed, and an opportunity to improve is ours for the taking. Injured in a car crash in Southfield, MI? The car accident lawyers from Mike Morse Injury Law Firm can help.

Victims of such accidents should consider seeking legal assistance from a Detroit personal injury lawyer when filing a claim or a lawsuit. Personal injury lawyers are valuable on the investigation of your claim. They may also consider getting help from a professional Milwaukee car accident lawyer. Looking for personal injury lawyers California? Contact the Johnson Attorneys Group! And those who need emergency towing may consider getting help from 24/7 towing services.

Reuters:

Most Android phones will have to wait until 2019 to duplicate the 3D sensing feature behind Apple’s Face ID security, three major parts producers have told Reuters, handicapping Samsung and others on a technology that is set to be worth billions in revenue over the next few years.

And:

Tech research house Gartner predicts that by 2021, 40 percent of smartphones will be equipped with 3D cameras, which can also be used for so-called augmented reality, or AR, in which digital objects cling tightly to images of the real world.

And:

According to parts manufacturers Viavi Solutions Inc, Finisar Corp and Ams AG, bottlenecks on key parts will mean mass adoption of 3D sensing will not happen until next year, disappointing earlier expectations.

That means that China’s Huawei, Xiaomi and others could be a total of almost two years behind Apple, which launched Face ID with its iPhone X anniversary phone last September.

Supply chain management is a critical part of Apple’s product strategy. The more of its parts and raw materials that Apple can control, the more accurately it can plan for a product’s release and lifecycle.

And if Apple can control an up and coming vital technology, preventing rivals from shipping competing product? That’s a game changer.

Popular Mechanics:

There is an art to a Jeopardy! clue. Its answers-in-search-of-questions exude a certain tone and tenor that’s different from trivia offerings from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, HQ, The Weakest Link, or even a throwback like You Bet Your Life. But the writer’s room is also a factory, one that must churn out 61 clues per episode, which adds up to hundreds of thousands of clues aired during the show’s long run.

Jeopardy! has always been my favorite game show but I never gave the process of the creation of the clues much thought.

This deal was spotted by Loop reader David Kaplan. I tried to find the hole in this logic, but seems like a genuine bargain.

DirecTV is running a limited time offer:

• Prepay for 3 months of DirecTV Now (online access to DirecTV)
• Get a free Apple TV 4K
• Cancel any time

The lowest tier of DirecTV Now costs $35 a month. Prepay that for 3 months, that’s $105, and get yourself access to DirecTV Now for 3 months and get an Apple TV 4K.

Read the fine print. Let me know if you see a flaw in this logic.

As always, caveat emptor.

Tyler Dukes, WRAL, Raleigh, North Carolina, reporting on two unrelated murders:

In March 2017, months after investigations began into both shootings, separate detectives on each case, one day apart, employed an innovative strategy in criminal investigations.

On a satellite image, they drew shapes around the crime scenes, marking the coordinates on the map. Then they convinced a Wake County judge they had enough probable cause to order Google to hand over account identifiers on every single cell phone that crossed the digital cordon during certain times.

And on reactions from defense attorneys and privacy advocates:

They’re mixed on how law enforcement turns to Google’s massive cache of user data, especially without a clear target in mind. And they’re concerned about the potential to snag innocent users, many of whom might not know just how closely the company tracks their every move.

To get a sense of just how much location tracking Google does, check out this Quartz post from last November:

Many people realize that smartphones track their locations. But what if you actively turn off location services, haven’t used any apps, and haven’t even inserted a carrier SIM card?

Even if you take all of those precautions, phones running Android software gather data about your location and send it back to Google when they’re connected to the internet, a Quartz investigation has revealed.

According to this story, and others I’ve read, Google can track your location, even if you take out your SIM card. Amazing.

Read both of these stories. They are riveting and chilling.

Mark Gurman, Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. is designing and producing its own device displays for the first time, using a secret manufacturing facility near its California headquarters to make small numbers of the screens for testing purposes, according to people familiar with the situation.

The technology giant is making a significant investment in the development of next-generation MicroLED screens, say the people, who requested anonymity to discuss internal planning. MicroLED screens use different light-emitting compounds than the current OLED displays and promise to make future gadgets slimmer, brighter and less power-hungry.

Significant innovation drives device sales. A new, innovative screen technology will bring buyers, hungry for the latest and greatest.

And the “less power-hungry” tag will, presumably, translate to longer battery life, or more power for the CPU.

Smart move on Apple’s part. Reduces dependency on other manufacturers, brings more of the full stack in house, and brings a proprietary, desirable technology into their exclusive control.

I wonder where this river of displays will be built. In the US? Subcontracted out to a manufacturer outside the US?

Open Culture:

Perhaps no one since Thomas Hardy has matched Leonard Cohen in the dogged persistence of literary bleakness.

Cohen’s expressions of despair—and of reverence, defiance, love, hatred, and lust—speak across generations, telling truths few of us confess but, just maybe, everybody knows.

For many, Cohen will be an acquired taste but he’s always been one of my favorite songwriters, right up there with Prince. But where Prince had a love of life and sensuality to it, Cohen would be described as depressing (not by me though). But I still love listening to him.

Open Culture:

For the uninitiated, the warp are the plain vertical threads of a weaving or tapestry, through which the colorful, horizontal weft threads are passed, over and under, on wooden needle-shaped bobbins (or shuttles).

As in the 17th-century, giant looms are strung with white warp threads, in readiness for the threads expert dyers have colored according to the artist’s palette.

This is an amazing video. I’ve seen these kinds of tapestries when I traveled in Europe and always wondered how they were created.

Metro News:

Amateur scientists in Canada have helped researchers discover a new type of northern lights.

The glowing ribbon of purple — and sometimes green — that runs east-west in the night sky has been observed and photographed by aurora borealis chasers for years.

Chris Ratzlaf said Steve was just meant to be a temporary name, but scientists have decided to keep it — only it now stands for Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement.

Apparently, Canadian scientists are incredibly unimaginative.

Above Avalon:

After a brief lull, Apple’s R&D expenditures are once again exploding higher. Apple’s 2Q18 financial guidance implies the company will soon report the largest year-over-year increase in quarterly R&D expense in its history. Management is on track to spend $14 billion on R&D in FY2018, nearly double the amount spent on R&D just four years ago. The dramatic rise in Apple R&D expenditures raises questions regarding the company’s product pipeline and whether management’s overall approach to R&D is changing.

Apple’s pace of R&D expenditures is nothing like the company has ever seen. The $14 billion of R&D expense that Apple will spend in FY2018 will be more than the amount Apple spent on R&D from 1998 to 2011.

“Something wicked this way comes…”

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Inverse:

We regret to inform you those widely circulated articles claiming astronaut Scott Kelly’s DNA changed after spending a year in space were incorrect, according to an official NASA statement.

The Business Insider story claimed, “Roughly seven percent of Scott Kelly’s genes may have permanently changed as a result of his time in space.” The next day, Newsweek published a story about the same results with the headline “NASA Twins Study Confirms Astronaut’s DNA Actually Changed in Space.” The thing is, they’re both wrong, because neither NASA nor the researchers on the Twins Study ever said that.

I posted the original (now debunked) story on Tuesday and I’m happy to post the correction today. Interesting game of Telephone. Thanks to Loop reader Drew Leavitt for pointing it out.

Longreads:

When a mission launches into space, whether it is to Venus, Mars, or as far out as Pluto, we have to be able to track it, send commands, and receive data — all over a signal about as powerful as the wattage of a refrigerator light bulb. These faint whispers are hard to hear, and losing track of them for any length of time can be a harrowing experience. If the Deep Space Network goes down, if we permanently lose our connection to Cassini, it would not only be a loss of billions of dollars but also two decades of work.

The heart of the Deep Space Network started beating on Christmas Eve 1963, when JPL confirmed their long-term intentions of sending missions into deep space. It hasn’t been turned off since. Its dishes, operators, and radio astronomers around the world have worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for the past 54 years. The DSN has many vital roles, but one of its biggest is to serve as the communication link between Earth and its robotic emissaries in deep space — anything from the moon and beyond. Every image we’ve ever received from deep space, every relay of scientific data, even those famous words the Eagle has landed, was collected by the dishes of the Deep Space Network.

I love these stories of scientists quietly working behind the scenes to provide us with information like this.

Lisa Brennan-Jobs has written a memoir, called Small Fry, due out in September, available for pre-order now.

From the Small Fry book page on Amazon:

Born on a farm and named in a field by her parents―artist Chrisann Brennan and Steve Jobs―Lisa Brennan-Jobs’s childhood unfolded in a rapidly changing Silicon Valley. When she was young, Lisa’s father was a mythical figure who was rarely present in her life. As she grew older, her father took an interest in her, ushering her into a new world of mansions, vacations, and private schools. His attention was thrilling, but he could also be cold, critical and unpredictable. When her relationship with her mother grew strained in high school, Lisa decided to move in with her father, hoping he’d become the parent she’d always wanted him to be.

Small Fry is Lisa Brennan-Jobs’s poignant story of a childhood spent between two imperfect but extraordinary homes. Scrappy, wise, and funny, young Lisa is an unforgettable guide through her parents’ fascinating and disparate worlds. Part portrait of a complex family, part love letter to California in the seventies and eighties, Small Fry is an enthralling book by an insightful new literary voice.

Fingers crossed, hoping this is a great book.

Austin Powell, Daily Dot:

> Tommie King could be the next rapper to breakout from Atlanta. He’s well-connected, has obvious swagger, and he’s been quietly building a successful collection of singles on Spotify. His latest, “Eastside (feat. Cyhi the Prynce),” has already clocked more than 110,000 streams, driven largely by its placement on 14 independent playlists.

And:

> In the modern music economy, in which streaming services account for nearly two-thirds of the total revenue generated by recorded music, emerging artists are increasingly being tracked via big data. Spotify streams, YouTube views, Twitter interactions, and even Wikipedia searches are all being used to discover the proverbial next big thing. That’s why King’s manager has worked to land his music on a staggering 594 Spotify playlists to date. Parallel to this, in the digital gaming world, platforms like cash app casinos are gaining traction by leveraging technology to provide secure and convenient transactions, appealing to the digitally-savvy user looking for seamless entertainment experiences.

And:

> There’s just one catch: King essentially paid to be added to those Spotify playlists. He’s one of countless artists who have compensated curators to check out his tracks—or in the case for some of his contemporaries, to be added to specific playlists—to gain valuable streams and attention. > > The black market for Spotify playlists is booming. It’s cheaper than you might expect to hack the system—and if it’s done right, it more than pays for itself.

No doubt, Spotify’s playlists are its secret sauce. They’ve quietly built the modern big data equivalent of the Billboard top 100 genre charts.

If the pay-to-play is true, I’m surprised that Spotify would tolerate that behavior. They have an opportunity to own a significant chunk of music’s future. But if they allow artists to buy their way in, they’ll squander that chance, all credibility gone.

Notably absent from this article is Apple (just a single mention, in passing). Is this simple bias? Or is Spotify truly owning this space? Very interesting.

Brett Arends, Barrons:

“I have yet to meet anyone who owns an Apple Watch who’s passionate about the product,” he told investors at the Roth Investment Conference in Laguna Beach, Calif., adding that sales of the Apple Watch have mainly just piggybacked off sales of iPhones.

“If you don’t have an Apple phone, you’re not buying an Apple Watch… [and] 80% of the world is Android, not Apple,” he said.

Someone nudge John Gruber. A good candidate for the claim chowder vault of honor.

Google Maps blog:

We’ve brought the richness of Google Maps to the Unity game engine. We turn buildings, roads, and parks into GameObjects in Unity, where developers can then add texture, style, and customization to match the look and feel of your game. This means that they can focus on building rich, immersive gameplay without the overhead of scaffolding a global-scale game world.

This is fascinating. Google has taken their real world maps data and offered it up to game developers. No need to invent a world for your game, just use the real one.

To truly get this, watch the video embedded below. Is this a potential path for Apple and Augmented Reality?

Catalin Cimpanu, Bleeping Computer:

Iranian users have not been able to access Apple’s App Store all day today, in what appears to be a ban put in place by the US company.

And:

Users were not able to connect to the Apple App Store to install or update applications. When visiting the App Store, they were instead greeted with the message “The App Store is unavailable in the country or region you’re in”.

This ban appears to be IP-based. Meysam Firouzi —an Iranian security researcher— told Bleeping Computer that he successfully connected to the App Store while using a VPN, despite having Iran-related details set on his account.

And:

In August 2017, Apple removed all apps created by Iranian developers from the App Store, attributing the move to US-imposed economic sanctions.

Interesting. Wondering if we’ll ever know the behind-the-scenes on this.

UPDATE from Bleeping Computer:

As of around 1 AM EST, Bleeping Computer received a message from Firouzi stating that the App Store was once again accessible in Iran. Apple has still not comment or returned our queries, so we are unsure if this was a mistake or something else that caused the outage.

Malwarebytes: >In late 2017, word of a new iPhone unlocker device started to circulate: a device called GrayKey, made by a company named Grayshift. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Grayshift was founded in 2016, and is a privately-held company with fewer than 50 employees. Little was known publicly about this device—or even whether it was a device or a service—until recently.

One-click to unlock your iPhone without a password. You may worry about forgetting the password on your iPhone or the second-hand iOS device you buy. With iPhone Unlocker, you can easily remove Apple ID, Face ID, and screen passcode. The iPhone passcode unlocker can unlock a locked or a cell phone with a broken screen. It will also grant you permission to factory reset your phone’s data without the passwords. It is fully compatible with your iPhone and will help you unlock your cell phone in various situations.

>Thanks to an anonymous source, we now know what this mysterious device looks like, and how it works. And while the technology is a good thing for law enforcement, it presents some significant security risks.

This is not a “the sky is falling!” situation but it’s definitely something to keep an eye on. I’m sure Apple is.

The Globe and Mail:

Toys ‘R’ Us Inc, the iconic toy retailer, will shutter or sell its stores in the United States after failing to find a buyer or reach a deal to restructure billions in debt, putting at risk about 30,000 jobs.

The closure is a blow to hundreds of toy makers that sell their products at the chain’s U.S. stores, including Barbie maker Mattel Inc, board game company Hasbro Inc and other vendors like Lego.

“This is a profoundly sad day for us as well as the millions of kids and families who we have served for the past 70 years,” Chief Executive Officer Dave Brandon said.

Devastating news for the industry, the employees and all of us, young or old, who loved going to Toys ‘R’ Us.